He smiles. “And you where you always belonged.” He hesitates. “Have you spoken to Lysander, face-to-face?” Virginia nods. “A word of advice when treating with him. Just because he wants to keep his word does not mean he will.”
“I’ll remember that. And, Cassius, the Republic welcomes you. I would like to offer you a battlefield promotion to Morning Knight of the Republic. Will you accept?”
Cassius blinks, stunned, then bows very formally. “It would be my honor, my Sovereign.”
He leaves with a nod to me. Now that we’re alone, Virginia allows her concern to show. “Sevro. Is he—”
“We’re working through it,” I say. Grief enters her eyes. “What is it?”
“Nothing. Guilt, I suppose. It is good to see you three together, despite everything.” She’s holding something back, but I don’t press. “Darrow, there’s something you should know. The agent who found Quicksilver is named Lyria of Lagalos. She was an unwilling participant in Pax’s kidnapping, and Electra’s. Yet Victra and I owe that girl a debt. Do not let Sevro kill her.”
“Unwilling?”
“She’s just a girl. She didn’t know. But she’s more than made up for it. And don’t you kill her either. Your son sent her out there. Pax believes in her.”
“Virginia, you know Regulus. She may already be dead.”
She shakes her head. “Perhaps, but I think Matteo may be an ally in this. One more thing: Volsung Fá and the Obsidians who sacked Olympia were last seen raiding asteroid cities along your route. I need you to promise me you won’t seek him out.”
She told me about Fá as we waited for Sevro and Cassius to join. My blood boiled to think of Sefi splayed open by an obvious fraud. That my Volk went with him afterwards boggles my mind. It’s not important now.
“I know my mission. Trust me.”
I reassure her with a smile. She watches me without speaking, and I feel the tender beat of her heart against my chest. “It’s harder than I thought it’d be. Sending you away. You’re so close. There’s too much to say.”
“It’s not fair, is it?” I ask.
“No.”
It rends me apart that I can’t use these last seconds for us. “Virginia…if Quick won’t come back, if we can’t make him—there may be another option.” I tell her about Aurae and Athena’s offer to Sevro as quickly as I can.
“In Ilium?” she asks when I finish. “That would add months…”
“I know.”
She goes quiet. I know her techs are talking to her.
“Darrow, I know what you had to do in order to secure a peace with Romulus, but I doubt anyone who survived the purges will see it that way. You can’t go to Ilium.”
“Well they didn’t invite me anyway. How long can you hold Mars?”
I’m stalling now to get more time with her.
“As long as I have to. I’m sending you an intel packet so you can know what I know about our enemies. In it is a set of coordinates. When you return, all Republic vessels not under Mars’s shields will rally to those coordinates to rendezvous with whatever ships you bring back. Do not rush home just to lose. You cannot squander our last chance. I am grounding our ships here on Mars to preserve them for your return. So promise me you will not come back unless you think we can win.”
“I understand.” Looking at her is too hard. I glance down as I continue, trying to use my last seconds well. “Virginia, I need you to tell Pax something for me. Tell him…that I am proud of him. That all I’ve done was for him, even if it doesn’t feel like it. I didn’t do it all right. But I think…I believe I did it for the right reasons. Tell him I love him more than my own life. Tell him—”
I stop because she is already gone.
The signal has been cut on her end. Without her hologram, the room is darker and so am I. I linger in the silence, because as long as I linger, as long as I do not look up and see where her image once was, she does not feel so very far away. I’ve read through The Path of the Vale enough to know that some currents cannot be fought, no matter how good a swimmer I think I am. Far better to hope that the rapids I sail upon will carry me to new opportunities, new allies. Still, the closer we drew to Mars, the more I allowed myself to expect I would hold her in my arms, breathe in the life of her, make so many mistakes right. Not yet, I suppose.
When I’m ready to face reality, I look up into the empty space she had once filled with light.
“Tell him I wish he and I had kept riding that gravBike,” I say. “Tell him when this is over, we’ll ride from coast to coast. Just him and me.”
* * *
—
Dinner is a silent affair. Aurae joins us, and asks a few questions about our conversation with Virginia, but gives up when neither Cassius nor I engage. The ship, now millions of kilometers further from Mars than when the day began, feels hollower even though no one has left. Sevro does not attend dinner.
After we’ve finished, I take Sevro a plate of ham and leave it outside the escape pod hatch. “I’m sorry,” I say. “It’s not fair. It’s not what I promised. If…if we had two ships, if there was a way to shoot you home with a catapult, I’d do it. It’s not fair I got to talk to Virginia and you didn’t get to talk to Victra. It’s not fair. I’m sorry. But they’re alive. Together. Like we are. They have each other’s backs. They’ll keep each other safe. Just like we’ll get each other home. I’ll shut up now. Oh. There’s food if you want it. It’s ham.” I can’t resist adding, “Cassius and I are training again in the morning. If you want to join.”
He doesn’t reply, but that’s fine. I said what I felt true and right.
I return to the galley to clean up, finding peace in making sure every crumb is accounted for and disposed of. Cassius looks for a similar peace in the bottom of his wine cup. Aurae disappears and returns with the lyre Harnassus made for her.
“I’ve never been so far from Io for so long,” she says. “I find myself very homesick. Yet it was Athena who told me there is no home for those born slaves. Only a prison the master tricked you into calling home. The true home for a slave is in dreams. Except on Mars where slaves make dreams real. I always found that a beautiful thought.”
There are no words to her song, but she hums along with the delicate sounds of the lyre. As she plays, the anvil weight of war lightens, and human emotions emerge in me. I close my eyes and think of my home. GodTrees grow and spread their limbs through my tired mind, the Thermic breeze rustles the tunic of my son, soft sunlight caresses my wife’s face.
The delicate music summons ghosts from my past.
Ragnar lives again, wild and big and brave. I see him toppled by Red children in Tinos, taking the razor from my hand in a field of mud. I see my father kissing my mother by our small kitchen table. I see Orion grinning at me across the bridge of the ship we called home. I see Lorn frowning at me in disapproval. Alexandar looking up at me for approval. Fitchner whisking me away to safety the moment I learned he was Ares, and he said, It’s me, boyo, it’s always been me. I see Eo looking back over her shoulder as she races into the deepmines, frozen in time like the light of a star, which carries on so many years after it dies.